Mobile TV for Austria by EURO 2008

MEDIA BROADCAST, holder of the Austrian DVB-H license, and Österreichische Rundfunksender GmbH (ORS, www.ors.at), both service companies for analogue and digital broadcast, have concluded an agreement for the "prompt implementation of mobile TV," according to a release.

The core of the agreement is the cooperation of both media service providers in the development and operation of the nationwide DVB-H broadcasting network. The objective is to supply all EURO 2008 venues from the very beginning. This will allow the majority of the Austrian population to receive 15 domestic and international TV programs and four Austrian radio programs in digital quality.

"We want to make Austria into a leading mobile TV market in Europe. The prerequisites for this are ideal and we have found another competent Austrian partner in ORS to help us achieve this goal," said Dr. Bertold Heil, manager of international DVB-H projects at MEDIA BROADCAST. "We assume that this will place an offer on the market that is an indispensable complement to the service portfolios of all Austrian mobile network operators.

"ORS has an existing infrastructure and expertise from the DVB-T rollout and the conducted DVB-H trial and is therefore the ideal partner for MEDIA BROADCAST for developing a network in the given time. This will strengthen Austria as a media center and secure an important added-value share for Austria," says Michael Wagenhofer, commercial manager of ORS.

The agreement governs the uses of the ORS broadcasting and network infrastructure for the network development and transmission of program signals.

The schedule foresees the start of DVB-H at the kick-off of EURO 2008 in the European Championship (EURO 2008) host cities of Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Klagenfurt. Dr. Bertold Heil: "The implementation time until EURO 2008 is extremely short. MEDIA BROADCAST and its partners bundle resources and know-how in order to attain this ambitious goal."